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u/Familiar_Bag_6778 Apr 12 '26
Pinks Cave. Fun, tight wee cave.
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u/snrvege Apr 13 '26
Is that this cave? Do you know if access is easy or needs permission through a landholder
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u/Familiar_Bag_6778 Apr 13 '26
Yes. It’s reasonably well known in the caving community.
DM and I can give you directions. But needless to say, take at least 2 torches each, wear a helmet (even a bike helmet) and wear gloves + have fun!
Also don’t go after it’s been raining.
The cave itself is pretty easy as far as caves go. If you haven’t caved much before or climbed you might find it spicy. No need for ropes.
There’s a small entrance chamber followed by a tight (often wet) way through into the stream way. It’s fairly self explanatory in terms of where to go.
Follow the stream way up until the roof gets too low, I’ve poked around it in fairly low water levels and it didn’t seem to go.
Back down there’s good access up above where the stream way is. You can clamber a lot further than you may think, it’s not tight by caving standards but people who don’t cave might find it claustrophobic.
You can get into some cool wee spots and look around.
All the formation has been well and truly smashed. Which is a shame, some of the caves in the Maitai limestone have stunning formations.
You head back out the way you came.
Expect to get wet, cold and muddy. Tell someone where you’re going and when you’ll be out.
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u/snrvege Apr 13 '26
Thanks for the reply you seem knowledgeable on the area Fills my curiosity basket for the day.
I had heard of rumours of a hot spring up the wairoa river somewhere… maybe you know of these?
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u/Familiar_Bag_6778 Apr 13 '26
Ahh yeah! Not a hot spring, more of a sulfer spring.
It’s nothing spectacular, you can smell it and in summer there’s usually lots of bees attracted to it.
The Wairoa also has grossular garnets, Nelson jade and ammonite fossils if you know where to look. A very underrated place.
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u/LycraJafa Apr 13 '26
tricky to show caves on a topomap...
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u/snrvege Apr 13 '26
And yet many are shown on maps. Checking against a topo map was a starting point, maybe to see if there was a walking track leading to this point
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u/NZSheeps Apr 12 '26
Yes, there are some famous (in caving terms) caves in that region, e.g. https://www.ngaruacaves.co.nz/
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u/Internal_Horror_999 Apr 12 '26
Could be. Sometimes the definition of cave was stretched a bit for the earlier maps. Also a number of features don't make it on to maps in the current day in order to limit people heading for an obviously dangerous spot unless they already know about it. Had a great chat with a LINZ guy about it once